


In a Nutshell

by thebeautyineveryinch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 11:44:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8488039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebeautyineveryinch/pseuds/thebeautyineveryinch
Summary: "We're still friends, right?" he asked her suddenly as they stepped into one of the boats to cross the lake. She turned and looked at him before grabbing his hand and Remus' in the other. "The best of friends," she said with a smile.





	

They were seven when they first met. She was at a ball with parents and brothers and her auntie and uncle and cousin. He was there with his parents and brother.

She was wearing a bright blue poofy ball gown for girls and her mum told her to find a nice boy to dance with besides her cousin James.

She stomped up to the boy with black hair and a sulking expression and asked him to dance.

He asked for her name.

“Kate Fowler,” she replied.

He grinned. “You aren’t a Pureblood.” It wasn’t a question.

She blanched and narrowed her eyes. “So?” she asked crossing her arms across her chest.

He continued to grin. “So, let’s dance. My parents will be right miffed. It’ll be brilliant,” he said grabbing her hand and tugging her to the dance floor.

She stumbled after him and tried to yank her arm from him. “Pardon? You’re dancing with me to make your mum and dad mad? And what does me not being a Pureblood have to do with anything?” she asked as he pulled her awkwardly into a dancing position.

He chuckled. “ _Because_ ,” he stressed the word as if it explained everything.

She clicked her tongue and glared. “That doesn’t explain anything you dolt.”

“Oi,” he replied with a grin. He sighed when she continued to glare at him. “Because, they are Pureblood snobs and don’t want to get their hands _dirty_ ,” he said with a disgusted face. “But I happen to think the Muggles that live on my street are fun and interesting and funny, but my mum and dad are mean and won’t let me play with them. I have to be stuck playing with Reg and he’s a good little boy and listens to what they tell him. And they make me sit like a good _Pureblood_ and play the piano and sit up straight and turn my nose up at the _dirty_ Muggles on our street and call them vile things. And I don’t want to do _any_ of that,” he explained.

Kate relaxed slightly and tilted her head and looked at him curiously. “That’s good of you,” she said. “My daddy is a Muggleborn and all of his family are Muggles and I love them,” she said with a grin. “You’re nice, can we be friends?”

He grinned back, “Definitely.”

“Sirius!” a clipped, arrogant female voice snapped from behind him. They two children stopped dancing and looked up at the haughty expression of a tall, black haired, fair faced woman. She was glaring down at the two and her face seemed to be stuck in a face that made Kate think she was smelling dung. Kate crinkled her nose at the woman. “What do you think you are doing?” she asked in a dangerously severe hiss.

Kate watched him glare at the woman and tilt his chin up defiantly. “I’m dancing, like you _told_ me to do.”

“But _who_ are you dancing with?” she asked rudely. Kate crossed her arms and glared.

“This is my _friend_ Katie _Fowler_ ,” he emphasized the two words and wore a satisfied grin on his face. “Mother,” he added gritting his teeth.

His mother scowled at him before grabbing his wrist in a vice-like grip that made him wince. “You know better than to mingle with _them_ ,” she spat and glared viciously down at Kate. “Come, you recalcitrant child. How many times do I have to tell you you are not to speak or _touch_ filthy Muggles or half-bloods. You are from the most noble and ancient House of Black and I will not let you defile our name because you are an ungrateful, disobedient son. You will dance and talk with only Purebloods and stay far away from this filth,” she shot Kate another nasty glance and tightened her grip on Sirius as he tried to get away and dig his heels into the floor. She huffed before dragging him away. He looked back at Kate sadly and waved before his mother slapped his hand down. She took him over to a snobby blonde and forced the two to dance.

Kate stormed off to find her mum and cursed about the hateful woman.

“Katherine,” her mother said soothingly. “There are people out there that believe they are better than others because of their ‘blood status.’ It’s not right and don’t for a second think you are not just as important of a person in this society as they are. You are better, in fact, because you are not filled with hate and scorn over something so trivial. You should judge someone on their character and not by who their parents are. Always remember that. And that boy you met seems to think that, and it’s not fair that his parents are so cruel to him for having an open mind. But I’m afraid I can’t make Mrs. Black,” she nodded to the haughty woman, “be nice to you or let her son be friends with you.”

Kate nodded sadly and looked back over at the boy who was glaring at his mother and sitting on the floor in defiance. She grinned at him as he resisted his mother’s attempts to make him stand and stop embarrassing her. He glanced over at Kate and smiled at her before his mother noticed where he was looking. She grabbed his arm, yanked him off the ground and rushed him out of the ball, dragging him by the ear and hissing things into it.

***

They were eleven when they met again. The train chugged along the tracks, winding its way north through the English countryside. Steam billowed from the chimney and clouded the bright blue sky outside the windows of each compartment. Kate scurried down the corridor dragging her best friend along with her as she quickly glanced in each compartment.

“He’s here somewhere,” she said looking over her shoulder at the sandy haired boy trailing after her.

He grinned at her and she grinned back.

“James!” she yelped as soon as she saw the messy black hair and crooked glasses of her cousin. She threw open the compartment door and jumped on top of him, hugging him and grinning broadly at the skinny boy.

“Bug!” he laughed and hugged her back before pushing her off and straitening himself. “Where’ve you been, then?” he asked as she settled into the seat next to him while her friend hesitantly sat across from her and next to a black haired boy who was watching the scene with amusement.

“Looking for you, of course,” she replied. “This is Remus, my best friend! Remus, this is James, my cousin,” she introduced them.

“Oh right, hi mate!” James said waving at Remus. “Can’t believe we haven’t met before,” he said ruffling his already messy hair with his hand.

Remus nodded his head and said a quiet, “Hello.”

“Remus is a little shy,” Kate said waving her hand and turning her head to look at the other boy in the compartment. “You look familiar,” she said tilting her head and squinting at him.

“Sirius…Black,” he introduced himself hesitantly.

“Oh! You’ve got that mean mum that wouldn’t let us dance at that ball! You liked playing with Muggles,” she said laughing.

He grinned at her. “Yeah, that’s me. Katie Fowler, right? Mum was right miffed with me that day. It was brilliant like I said it would be,” he said grinning more broadly.

She laughed and the four of them all talked about Hogwarts and magic and being in Gryffindor. Then they played exploding snap and traded chocolate frogs.

“We’re still friends, right?” he asked her suddenly as they stepped into one of the boats to cross the lake.

She turned and looked at him before grabbing his hand and Remus’ in the other. “The best of friends,” she said with a smile.

He smiled widely back at her.

***

They were twelve and playing spin the bottle and she had spun the butterbeer bottle (Merlin knows where they got it from) and it landed squarely on him.

He smirked at her and it was the smirk that him and James and Remus and Peter had all perfected in the last year of their friendship. It was known as the Marauder grin because that was what they called themselves and it was so silly, she thought.

She blushed as he looked pointedly at her.

She leaned over the center of the circle and he followed suit and she quickly pecked his lips against his and he grabbed the back of her head and pressed his lips firmly against hers.

She yelped and shoved his shoulders back and they laughed as they sat back in their spots in the small circle.

It was her first kiss and his second.

***

She went on her first date on the second Hogsmeade trip of their third year. She had just turned fourteen and it was December and cold and she was bundled up in a jacket and scarf and boots and she was on a date with Joseph Stebbins and he had soft neat brown hair and a slightly pimply face. They went Christmas shopping and had butterbeers at the Three Broomsticks and Kate almost poured her drink over her head by the end of it because he was so boring. He hugged her at the end when they reentered the Entrance Hall and tried to kiss her but she pushed his face away and told him they should just be friends.

He went on his first date with Sue Li, one of Kate’s dorm mates, and he snogged her in the carriage back to the school and told her she was pretty and asked her to be his girlfriend. They broke up two weeks later when he told her he was bored. He snogged Julie Thatcher, a Hufflepuff fourth year, the next day and didn’t ask her to be his girlfriend. Girlfriends were too boring and he just liked the snogging part.

Kate’s first boyfriend wasn’t until the next year, after Christmas break. She dated Phillip Phipps, a fit Ravenclaw fifth year, for four months before he dumped her saying she wasn’t mature enough for him. Whatever that meant. She cried for a week and her friends gave her lots of chocolate and Sirius and James hexed him one day in the hall and he ended up in the hospital wing for an afternoon with boils.

***

He ran away from home one rainy night at the end of July after their fifth year. He had a bruise on his jaw, reddened knuckles, and a large gash on his shoulder from a curse when he showed up soaking wet with two bags slung over his shoulder on the Potter’s doorstep. Kate was over at James’ house playing chess with him and they ushered him inside, had the house elf set up _his_ room and bring him food. Kate made him an icepack and sat next to him on the couch and hugged him close as the Potter’s told him he was their son too.

She told him she loved him and she would always love him and would never hurt him.

He told her the same thing.

***

She was attacked one night in their sixth year in the corridor on the fifth floor on her way back from the hospital wing by a group of four Slytherins that called her a dirty half-blood, blood traitor whore. One of the boys, Roland Mulciber, hit her with a slicing jinx that left a nasty gash on her neck and broke her leg when she tried to run. Another, Marcus Avery, cackled and bound her hands with ropes while he kissed her and put his hand under her shirt.

Sirius pulled Avery off of her and punched him in the face before she blacked out.

She woke up in the hospital wing with Sirius sitting next to her beside holding her hand and looking exhausted. James, Remus, and Peter were all sat at the end of her bed looking worried. They had seen them gang up on her on the map of the school they had.

Avery and Mulciber were suspended for a month and all four boys got detentions for three months.

Sirius hexed all four of them the next time he saw them and ended up getting detention for a month.

“Worth it,” he said with a grin and hugged her tightly to his chest, rubbing gentle circles into her back as she smiled into his neck and breathed in his cologne.

“Thanks,” she replied.

She hexed Avery when he cornered her in an alcove on the way to class when he threatened to have her family murdered for tattling on him.

He was going to be a Death Eater and her family was fighting against them and she told him to “Sod off you great pillock,” before aiming a Bat Bogey Hex at his face and finishing off with a Petrificus Totalus. She failed to mention he was lying in that alcove and it took an hour before anyone found him.

She got a weeks’ worth of detention and the tiniest of smiles from Professor McGonagall.

“Worth it,” she said with a grin as Sirius high fived her.

“I could just kiss you,” he replied and hugged her tightly to him, spinning her around.

She grinned back at him as he hesitated before letting her go and they stared at each other a moment longer before looking away. She blushed and he coughed.

***

Her eldest brother Elliot was killed two months later by a couple of Death Eaters. His body was found mangled and hanging from a post outside his office.

Mr. and Mrs. Fowler came to get Kate from Hogwarts for the funeral and invited James to come too, since he was practically like another brother.

Sirius waited outside of Dumbledore’s office and when she and James came walking out to get bags for the weekend, she collapsed into Sirius’ arms and cried. James went to Gryffindor tower and got their stuff.

Her parents invited Sirius and Remus to the funeral too. Sirius held her against his chest as she let tears fall down her cheeks and he rubbed circles into her back.

When she woke up in the middle of the night every other night after that, he held her against his chest on the sofa in the Gryffindor common room at three in the morning until she fell back asleep.

***

Ewan Craig, her boyfriend of six months, broke up with her at the end of July after her sixth year. He had just graduated Hogwarts and was about to start a job at the Ministry and told her that he didn’t think the long distance would work out.

Kate was sure he was jealous of Sirius.

Sirius and Marlene took her out to drink at a pub and she got wasted with them and James.

She snogged Sirius that night when she stumbled into his chest in her parents’ front garden when he was helping her home.

He tasted like Firewhiskey and cigarettes and mint and his hair was soft between her cold fingers and he was warm and solid and so very _Sirius_.

He reveled in her soft, pink lips that tasted like cherry chapstick and Firewhiskey and vinegar from the chips she devoured. And her gorgeous brown hair smelled like flowers and her skin was cold and soft and she shivered at his touch and giggled when he kissed her over and over again.

She woke up the next day with a nasty hangover and no memory of the night before. He woke up, vomited once, felt better, and remembered everything from the night before.

He didn’t bring it up when he realized she didn’t remember.

He couldn’t stop staring at her the rest of the day though and that night he dreamt of snogging her in his bed.

She blushed every time he looked at her that day and had been fancying him ever since he held her and let her cry in his arms after her brother was killed three months previously.

***

He asked her to go to the first Hogsmeade trip of their seventh year as friends and everyone teased them about going on a date. She had hesitantly accepted and he finally wheedled the truth out of her. She had kind of wanted a date to Hogsmeade by someone because she wanted to snog a boy. He told her with a wink he could help her out with that. She blushed and shoved his face away from her as they sat in the Three Broomsticks laughing and sharing a plate of chips.

He slung his arm around her shoulders as they walked down the lane of Hogsmeade. He was whistling and smoking a cigarette and she had her arm wrapped around his waist and was smiling as she fought to keep her hair tucked behind her ear as the wind blew around them.

He pulled her off into a back alley and tugged her into his chest and smiled down at her before tucking her hair behind her ears and cupping her face. Her breath hitched in her throat and she couldn’t quite tell if her cheeks were warm from blushing or from his calloused hands. Her heart hammered against her chest though and his breath on her face smelled like butterbeer and cigarettes and she breathed in the smell of his cologne and smiled nervously up at him as he grinned down at her.

Then he placed his chapped lips against hers and she slid her arms around his neck and they were snogging in an alley in Hogsmeade and her hair smelled like flowers and she tasted like butterbeer and chips and cherry chapstick and he gently pushed her back against the wall and placed his hand between the back of her head and the brick wall. Her hair bunched up in his hand and he tilted his head slightly and they were snogging and her body was pressed against his and it was so bloody fantastic.

They paused to catch their breath and their foreheads were pressed against each other and they were panting slightly and little clouds blew in each other’s face with each breath and they were smiling.

“What was that for?” she asked breathily.

“You said you wanted a good snog,” he replied with a smirk.

She laughed and he grinned and pressed his lips against hers again.

They didn’t talk about it after they left the alley. They didn’t catch each other’s sidelong glances either.

***

He punched his brother in the face and hexed him for being a “dumb little shit” when he found him cursing a second year Muggleborn with Snape, Avery, and Mulciber.

“You can’t tell me what to do, we aren’t _family_ ,” Regulus had hissed at him after spitting out blood. He turned on his back and stormed away from Sirius who was being held back by Remus. James and Peter had their wands raised at the Slytherins still standing there sneering at them.

“Oh sod off you lot,” James growled after a moment. “Thirty points from Slytherin and you can bet on a bunch of detention after I speak to Dumbledore about this.”

“Yeah _Potter_ , run off to that oaf, you won’t have his protection after Hogwarts anymore and you’ll all be sorry,” Avery sneered at them. “Blood traitors and half-bloods and your filthy Mudblood and half-blood whores too,” he spat on the ground in front of them. “You’ll all get what you deserve.”

James and Sirius both hexed Avery and received a week’s worth of detention.

“Worth it,” Sirius said moodily as he sat against a beech tree on the edge of the lake, staring out across the water.

Kate snuggled into his side and held his hand “I’m sorry about Regulus,” she said quietly.

Sirius gripped her hand and took another drag from his cigarette before nodding his head curtly. “Me too,” he replied bitterly.

***

They joined the Order the day after they graduated with James, Lily, Remus, Peter, and Marlene. Their first assignments were boring, staking out a low profile place and they complained in James and Sirius’ apartment while sharing a round of Firewhiskey.

And every mission after that for the first three months felt the same. Like they weren’t doing anything worthwhile.

During the fourth month, Sirius, Remus, and Marlene almost got murdered. Kate, James, Lily, and Peter ended up in Mungo’s after a blast at a raid and ended up in Mungo’s for a few days.

They all sat in James and Sirius’ flat again with a round of Firewhiskey and didn’t say anything.

They fought and snuck around and spied and almost died several times. They watched innocent Muggles and wizards from all blood statuses get murdered and couldn’t stop them and got injured several times and almost died many more times.

They all had scars littered on their bodies and all of them drank and smoked and tried to forget the smell of burning flesh and screams of children being tortured and it was too much and too terrible.

***

Sirius and Kate were backed up against a wall battling against three Death Eaters and other Order members were doing the same thing nearby. A green flash blasted a hole into the wall to Kate’s right, brick shrapnel cut large gashes into her face. She sent a powerful stunning spell at one of the Death Eaters and watched them fly ten feet backwards before thudding hard on the ground. Her hand was trembling with fury.

Sirius watched the light and chanced a glance to his right and sighed when it didn’t hit her. He blocked another curse and sent one right back, anger coursing through his veins. He missed. He sent another and another and another in quick succession and blasted the other two Death Eaters twenty feet away, leaving a crater in the ground with their bodies.

He rushed over to Katie and pulled her into his chest and she trembled in his arms. He nuzzled his nose into her hair and breathed in the faint smell of flowers and the stale stench of burnt hair and musky sweat. She lifted her head up and grey eyes met hazel and he kissed her with such passion she stumbled backwards. He grabbed her and pulled her back into his chest. They sat there in the alley and snogged like it was their last moment and they only broke apart when James yelled, “Oi, lovebirds, a little help over here!”

He told her he loved her that night when they stumbled into her flat and she said it back and he asked her to be his girl and they made love in her bed that night.

***

Lily and James got married in the Potter’s backyard in the spring of 1979 after being engaged for four months.

It was a breath of fresh air in the suffocating smoke of the war.

Lily looked radiant and James was beaming and they were so in love it was almost sickening. Sirius made a ridiculous, albeit sweet best man speech that had people laughing and Lily crying. Kate cried during her maid of honor speech and Sirius threw cake in her face and licked it clean off.

They danced and drank with their friends, and for that one night, they forgot about the war raging just outside the wards of the Potter’s yard.

***

One step forward, two steps back.

That’s what it felt like with every victory. Every victory the Order had was followed by more devastation, more losses. Voldemort and his Death Eaters were winning and The Order and Muggles were losing and dying at every turn.

Kate vomited on herself when she was two seconds too slow in saving a three year old girl from getting murdered by Avery.

He smiled victoriously in her face and she punched him squarely in the jaw before snapping his wand in half.

He got away though and the next time she saw him, he had a new wand and hit her with a Crucio curse for five minutes before Sirius stopped him. He escaped capture again.

Sirius vomited after drinking an absurd amount of Firewhiskey after coming home from a failed mission where Callum Pritchard was killed.

They lost seven Order members that year.

***

Kate got hit with a slicing jinx straight into her abdomen and had emergency surgery.

They told her she would never be able to have children of her own and she cried until her mother forced a sleeping potion down her mouth.

Sirius held her almost all the time for the next week unable to comfort her loss of the one thing she had always wanted.

Peter had to stop him from murdering the Death Eater that had done it to her, the next time he saw him.

***

Lily found out she was pregnant that fall and James was going to be a _dad_ and it was all so ridiculous, the thought of having a baby ( _a baby_!) in the middle of this awful war that seemed like it would never end.

And hadn’t they just been kids yesterday? Where had the time gone? Where had their childhood gone?

They were nineteen years old and felt eighty with all the stress wrinkles and scars and fatigue.

And then Lily and James had Harry the next summer and he was beautiful and a spitting image of James except for Lily’s glittering green eyes. They named Sirius and Kate godparents and Kate had a child to spoil and love and cuddle and Sirius saw her genuinely smile for the first time in months.

His heart ached something awful and he kissed her face over and over again and told her how much he loved her and that beautiful smile.

She smiled like that more often, just for him and they were okay for a little while.

***

Sirius held Kate in his arms night after night and their voices got quieter and quieter. They fought and she cried and he drank and they snogged and kept on fighting against Voldemort.

Their relationship got more and more strained as they were away from each other more and more because of missions and so many Order members dying. James and Lily were in hiding and Voldemort was after their son and there was a spy in the Order. Kate and Sirius fought over who it was and that night he left and she drank.

The next day he came home and apologized and they made up in their bed for hours.

James and Lily asked Sirius to be their secret keeper and Sirius told them to go one step further and make Peter the secret keeper.

He didn’t tell Kate.

And when Lily and James were killed and Sirius was sent to Azkaban for murdering all those Muggles and Peter, Kate laid on the floor of their flat and cried for two days until his birthday. Remus came back from his mission and picked her up and held her close. She clung to him tightly but still felt so wretchedly alone.

Sirius sat in his cell in Azkaban shivering and thinking about all the terrible things the dementors were making him remember. And all he could think about was James and Lily dead and Katie not smiling and Katie. Katie. Katie. And a large piece of him died in that cell and he never got it back, even after he escaped twelve years later.

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this on FF.net and had decided to make it a 1/3 at the time, but after writing part 2 and posting it there, I wanted to just leave it the 1 part. I'm leaving it 1 part on here and I may finish the 3rd part over on FF.net at some point. Let me know what you think! (P.s. my username is the same on FF.net (without the 'the'), if you want to read the part 2 I posted for it.)
> 
> Also, I own nothing. Harry Potter's world and characters are all J.K. Rowling's.


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